The present invention relates to the technical field of radio frequency (RF), particularly to a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus, an RF amplification system and method.
Many forms of wireless communication use RF transmission. An RF carrier signal may be modulated to carry information. The modulated RF carrier signal may be amplified and transmitted. In order to prevent the modulated RF carrier signal from carrying distorted information, the amplification process generally needs to be kept relatively linear.
For example, a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus generally has an RF amplification system, which drives an RF coil located within its main magnetic structure with an RF amplifier. The RF amplifier receives a series of pulses generated by an external RF source as its input signal and generates a series of pulses with enhanced power as its output signal that is transmitted and used for driving the RF coil. However, during the RF amplification, non-linearity of gain and phase of the RF amplifier may be introduced into the system, which results in distortion of an MRI image. In order to avoid such a case, the RF amplification system generates a feedback signal with a feedback device to correct non-linearity factors introduced during the RF amplification to keep linearity.
However, in the traditional RF amplification system, there are technical problems such as too many electronic elements, complicated circuit design, etc. Therefore, there is a need to propose a novel RF amplification system and method.